[SUMMARY] - running top from oracle account

From: Susan Rodriguez <SUSROD_at_HBSI.COM>
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 15:45:07 -0700

Original problem:

could only see partial output when running the top command.

Thanks to

Robert McMillin
Donald Rye
Knut Hellebo

all of whom had helpful suggestions. After checking tty (stty -a) and
the variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH, I was still no wiser. I finally stumbled
on the answer. There was another copy of top in oracle's home directory
- one I did not know about and one that should not have been there. I
think someone tried to fix their own problem before coming to the system
administrator.

Since oracle's PATH is setup to look in the HOME directory before
/usr/local/bin, it was running the wrong top command. There was no
setuid on top in oracle's home dir., so it could not run the command
properly. I removed that copy of top and now the command runs fine.

Also, it was suggested to me that having top with setuid AND 777
permissions is a security problem. I have heard this before but don't
know why it is a problem, or how it can be used by hackers. chmod 2755
/usr/local/bin/top was suggested, but that failed to allow top to run
correctly - back to no processes on the screen. chmod 4755
/usr/local/bin/top does work, adding the setuid, but revoking write from
group and other.

Thanks again,

Susan Rodriguez
susrod_at_hbsi.com
Received on Wed Oct 15 1997 - 00:54:22 NZDT

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